House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) today released the following statement after Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a new electronic lease sale tracking system for onshore federal oil and natural gas production.

“Better government efficiency is certainly positive, but the real problem over the past three years of the Obama Administration isn’t slow computers but policies that punish and discourage American-made energy on federal lands. The Obama Administration has cancelled drilling leases, slow-walked permits, imposed drilling moratoriums, and generally erected roadblocks to energy production on federal lands. Due to the President’s policies, federal oil production declined 14 percent last year and federal natural gas production was down 11 percent. With the Obama Administration’s record, it’s no wonder they’re trying sidle up to the oil and natural gas boom on non-federal lands in North Dakota hoping to bask in the positive glow they had zero to do with.”

Background:

• Obama Administration has BLOCKED energy production on federal lands. The total onshore acreage leased under the Obama Administration in 2009 and 2010 is the lowest in over two decades, stretching back to at least 1984. Under the Obama Administration, 2010 had the LOWEST number of onshore leases issued since 1984.

• The Obama Administration’s Energy Information Administration confirmed that from 2010 to 2011, federal oil production fell by 14 percent and federal natural gas production fell 11 percent.

• The non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a report confirming that since 2007, “About 96% of the [oil production] increase took place on non-federal lands…”

• President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget requests increases taxes by $45 billion for American energy production.

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